The Slender Games
by Heletherel
Summary: Annie is being haunted by the ghost of Finnick Odair, who stalks her through the forests of District 12 wearing the same black suit that she saw him in on their wedding day. Meanwhile, Katniss has learned of Gale's disappearance, later discovering an evil creature with huge claws and Gale's face in the wilderness. (More of a cross with the Everymanhybrid videos than with Slender.)
1. Chapter 1

The call echoed out from the shadows…

_"Annie! Aanniiee!"_

She tore her way towards the source of the cries, plunging slowly onward with arms outstretched, almost as if swimming through ink…

_"Annie!"_

A figure was revealed from the black haze. Tall, thin; completely static. Waiting.

Annie looked down at herself and saw she wore nothing but a sheet. That's right. This must be that day in District Thirteen; the beautiful moment when she was reunited with her hero.

"Finnick!" Annie replied just as she had before, "Finnick!"

_"Annie!"_

Something was wrong. Her name was not exclaimed with love, but misery.

Just as Annie reached the figure and embraced him, she was lost once again in the haze of ink. The image had only been an illusion.

"Finnick! No!"

But it hadn't been a complete deception. In place of the figure was a head rolling slowly at Annie's feet. As she lifted it from the smoky ground, Annie knew it had to be that of her husband, and yet, something was very wrong. The head was missing Finnick's gorgeous sea green eyes and sunlit bronze hair. Even his skin was a bleached pale gray and the lips were plastered over with flesh. More a skull than a face.

Annie looked into the empty eyes of her husband and screamed tirelessly. For a moment, she could hear him screaming along. Then that moment was suddenly interrupted.

"Annie!"

"Finnick! Finnick where are you?!"

"Annie, no, it's me! Katniss! Wake up, Annie! Come on, you're dreaming!"

Annie's green eyes fluttered open to look upon her own hands raised around the empty air where the disfigured head had been. Beyond that, the face of her friend Katniss stared on worriedly. For quite a while Annie remained slumped against the side of her bed in silence.

"He was so angry…"

"If it was just a dream, then it doesn't matter. Everyone has dreams. Just forget about it and go back to bed."

Katniss stood from where she had crouched beside Annie and walked out the door before Annie could think of something to say that would stop her. She could only sigh and crawl under the sheets again. Thanks to the strong dose of morphling Johanna had given her, Annie was able to slowly drift away into sleep despite the feelings of terror swirling in her mind.

Just as she had completely disconnected from consciousness, a slender fist bashed against the wall beside her bed.

Gasping, Annie lurched up and looked to the source of the noise in panic. For a moment, she could see a flash of black…

Finnick's suit on their wedding day?

And then there was nothing in its place.


	2. Chapter 2

If only Annie was stronger. It wasn't like she was the only one with tragedy in her life… and life had to go on. Katniss had recovered a little; so had almost everyone else around her. But Annie had been too unstable to remain living by herself in District Four; her mental condition still unimproved. Katniss had been forced to take Annie in at their new house in the remains of the Victor's Village in District Twelve, with her child in the care of district friends. Now, with the child-minded woman lurching around and screaming in her sleep so loudly that it could be heard from upstairs, Katniss had little patience for her friend.

Reaching the door to her bedroom after a trip downstairs to calm Annie's latest episode, Katniss sighed audibly but still quietly enough not to disturb Peeta, who slept soundly on one side of the bed. Carefully, Katniss took her place beside him and was just settling into the mattress when she heard a muffled thump, then an eardrum-shattering scream that sent both she and Peeta bolting upright.

"What the…?! Annie!" Katniss roared, more angry than worried. Why did Annie do this to her?

The two of them stomped out of their bedroom and raced down the stairs to the guest room where Annie was staying.

"Annie, what's going on?" Katniss demanded, throwing open the door to the room to find Annie shivering on the edge of her bed as she stared in panic up at a deep crack in the wall a couple feet above the bedpost.

"Annie, what did you do?"

Annie could only squeak in response, unable to form words or even look away from the damaged wall. Then she burst out into tears.

"Annie, you'd better tell me right now what…"

"Katniss, don't," Peeta interrupted in a whisper.

Stepping away so Annie wouldn't hear her, Katniss replied, "I can't stand it anymore. One day she's going to burn this entire house down…or something just as awful..."

"We have to be patient," Peeta insisted, "Let's just calmly ask her what happened and then we'll try to do something to prevent it in the future. Okay?"

"Fine." The word was barely audible, but still passed as a confirmation.

"Alright, then," Now Peeta walked back to where Annie had remained sobbing and trembling beside the wall, "Annie? I just want to know what happened. We're not mad. We only want to help."

"I'm sorry…"Annie choked out, "I just…couldn't keep it in…"

"You were angry? And you hit the wall?" Peeta speculated.

"No…" Annie corrected, "It was my scream. The scream was my fault. But the wall…that was Finnick's doing."

"Finnick? That's…not possible, Annie." Over Peeta's shoulder, Annie noticed Katniss's eyes widen considerably.

"It was him." Annie's voice suddenly hardened and lost its instability, but not its fear. Her piercing eyes were especially alert, despite such an exhausting night.

"It couldn't be. You must have been sleepwalking, or had some sort of hallucination," Peeta reasoned. "That morphling might be messing with your head."

"Of course you don't believe me. Of course." The frustration was palpable in Annie's voice.

"Look, I'm sorry, but…I don't know what to say. Let's just all go back to sleep until morning and try to work something out once we've gotten some rest."

There was a pause and Annie looked back to the gash in the wall with tears in her radiant green eyes.

"Alright," she relented.

Upon falling back to sleep, Katniss was vaguely aware of a dream in which she caught a glimpse of Annie standing next to a tall figure. But there was one more person crouched beside them.

Gale?

Then she turned around and was wrapped in Peeta's arms and all was peaceful again. So peaceful that in the morning she couldn't even remember the figures in her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**This chapter is much longer than the others, but this is when some of the important action begins, so I hope you read it!**

"So do you want to talk about what happened last night?" Peeta softly questioned.

Annie sat by herself on the floor in the corner of the sitting room, momentarily in silence.

"I don't know."

"'Don't know what?"

"I don't…don't understand what happened. What I thought I saw just can't be right. It just doesn't make sense."

Peeta stayed in silence as he sat down next to her.

"What did you see, Annie? Describe what you can remember." He coaxed.

"You didn't believe me last night." Annie clenched her fists against her forehead, half in frustration; half in confusion.

"That's because I was still half asleep. I couldn't quite understand what was going on. Now I'm all ears."

"Okay, but…even I can't quite comprehend what I saw." Annie sighed. For a moment, she looked lost…lost in her mind full of awful memories.

"The impact on the wall was what woke me up," she explained. "I looked to the source and saw a man. He was very, very tall and thin and his face was covered by the shadows. And he wore a black suit. It looked just like the one Finnick wore to our wedding. His fist was clenched against the wall, right over the mark. His whole posture and aura seemed so angry and…wrong. The image was just too…horrible to bear, and I couldn't keep in the scream. And then…it all vanished; like I was going completely mad and it had never been there. But…that mark remained in the wall. The idea of having such proof of the thing's existence terrified me, and, as you know, I screamed."

"Quite strange…" Peeta remarked, deep in thought. "Maybe that person was only a trick of the shadows. As for the wall, well, we might never know what happened."

Annie nodded in reply, though there still remained a shade of unrest in her beaten eyes.

"How about we go catch up with Katniss?" Peeta suggested with a small smile.

"Where did she go again?"

"Out into the forest. She really loves taking walks out there, doesn't she? Always walking and singing..." Peeta gave a joyful smile at the thought of his dear wife.

Leaving their home in the victor's village, Peeta and Annie took their time ambling through the outskirts of the District Twelve heartland, eventually approaching the magnificent expanse of forestland that was Katniss's sanctuary.

Meanwhile, Katniss was already far ahead. Today she had decided to pick up the pace so as to reach the deepest reaches of the forest quickly. She found the comfort this place brought to her to be immeasurable. Watching the sunlight beam down between the branches and shine through their impossibly green leaves relaxed and comforted her. She imagined that each ray of light was the reflection of a soul at peace, maybe a murdered tribute from an outlying district, or a brave rebel who was enslaved as an avox. She raised a splayed hand to the sky and watched as the rays played around the edges of her fingers.

_I hope I have brought you peace,_ she thought, _I hope you can all rest now._

Then a cloud glided across the sun's path and the rays were extinguished. Katniss felt the air cool considerably as the sunlight was obstructed and a gust of wind weaved through the thick clusters of trees, causing the clusters of leaves to shiver and huddle together. Katniss's body stiffened slightly against the cold and she rubbed her booted feet back and forth against the root covered, leaf strewn ground in an attempt to keep her circulation going. The trees surrounding her became further and further obscured in layers of deep shadows as the clouds above grew thicker and darker. Suddenly, she heard a crunching sound (that she had at first ignored) grow louder. And then…

_"AAH!"_

"What the…!" Katniss's whole body shook with shock and she exploded into motion, lunging away from the source of the sound, directly behind her. Her widened, well-trained eyes scanned for movement, which she soon found. From behind a tangle of bushes lunged a creature of a type she found hopeless to identify. It looked to be humanoid, though horribly contorted, and…

Katniss was forced to look away as she turned to dodge a set of supernaturally long claws that slashed at her like four curved swords. But she had managed to catch one last glimpse before she moved, this one of the creature's face.

It had the face of Gale.

_It must be a surviving mutt! _She frantically reasoned with herself as she fled from the creature. She hadn't brought her bow and arrows, so she could only hope to escape it by retreating as deep into the forest as she could. She deftly bounced over roots and fallen branches strewn across the forest floor. She grabbed onto the low limb of an oak she was passing by and scrambled on top of it in a flurry of shredding bark. The moment she managed to balance on the branch, she leapt to another, growing from a nearby pine, a few feet higher up. Just as her hands gripped the jagged surface, she heard the first branch snap and rip from the oak's trunk. Risking a glance behind her, she saw Gale…or rather that thing, scaling the same tree in a mad attempt to pursue her, its claws raking up the thick bark and causing dark sap to spew from the chasm-like gashes. As she struggled to get a foothold on the trunk of the pine, Katniss noted something even more disturbing: long, thin marks covered the thing's body. They were marks of a whip…that which belonged to the former Head Peacekeeper Romulus Thread. She was lost in that moment years ago, when her childhood friend was attacked and suffered unbearable pain for days on end. But it was as if the scars had grown, not shrank. They eclipsed his entire emaciated body, snaking over his bare scalp and gaunt, sunken face.

_What kind of mutt _is_ this?!_

_"AAAH!"_

It lunged at her from its perch and barely missed the branch upon which she was balanced, plummeting at least ten feet to the forest floor. Katniss took advantage of the opportunity to scale further up the pine, grabbing a thinner bough just in her reach and hoisting herself up onto it. A sharp, stake like stump that remained from a snapped branch jutted out in front of her from the trunk, and she snapped it off, ready to use it as a weapon if need be. Looking down, she saw that twisted figure still writhing below her, shrieking like a wild beast. It struggled up on all fours, looking up with Gale's glazed eyes and locking onto hers.

"Mutt!" Katniss growled, unable to pull her gaze from the thing's face as she raised her makeshift weapon, debating whether to throw it.

To Katniss's relief, the creature didn't go into another frenzy. But to her surprise, it slowly raised itself from the ground until it stood, with a perfectly human posture, on two feet. Still its eyes did not leave hers.

"Gale…" It couldn't be a mutt. Somehow Katniss believed that no amount of Capitol manipulation could produce such a disturbing creature. It could only be the spirit of the long dead Gale itself.

"Gale!"

_"Katniss!"_

It was Peeta who called to her. He broke through a nearby clump of brush with Annie at his side.

"Watch out, Peeta! There's a…there's…"

Katniss looked back to the thing to find it gone. It had vanished even more quickly than it had appeared.

**If you've gotten this far, I deserve at least a short review, don't I? :)**

**I hope you guys are enjoying the story! Don't worry, fangirls...Finnick will make another appearance soon!**


	4. Chapter 4

"It was Gale!"

"It couldn't be!"

Peeta paced the upstairs hallway of his home, the volume of his words more influenced by fear than frustration. Katniss stood at the end of the hall, her back against the corner of the walls. Her skin was sticky with cool sweat mingled with dirt, and her eyes were as wide as a young deer who had narrowly escaped a hideous end. It was as if she was back in the Games. Something was out to kill her, and there were only so many ways she could defend herself. It was as if the Gamemakers were still at work, still torturing entertainment out of her!

"Katniss, you're not thinking straight!" Peeta held out his hands, palms up, in an effort to reason with her. "I can understand Annie being like this, but…not you! What_ really_ happened, Katniss?"

"I was attacked! It had Gale's face!" Katniss could barely keep herself from shrieking the words. She looked to the window beside her with wild, paranoid eyes, scanning the bordering forest, now shrouded in a light mist. Both she and her husband had the same thought racing through every fiber of their brains.

"Gale…you know how he disappeared last month?" Peeta cautiously began. "I was told that…he ran off into the wilderness. He just left in the middle of the evening. And…I'm sorry I didn't tell you this, Katniss, but Gale's neighbor, the one who notified me that he went missing…well, she said there was this tall, black figure waiting for him at the edge of town. She described it," Peeta took a deep breath, "…how Annie had described the person in her room."

"So what's that supposed to mean?" Katniss shouted at the windowpane, her gentle hands clenched into fists. "You mean that Annie's ravings have something to do with the _physical_ creature that attacked me? I don't see any parallel there."

"There _is _a parallel, Katniss." There was a moment of silence as Katniss shook her head, refusing to pull her eyes from the window. Then Peeta added, "Annie saw Finnick. You saw Gale."

"Annie saw her own terrors playing out in her addled mind. I saw a creature that tried to kill me." Katniss took in a deep breath, but even then she couldn't hold back a shudder. That thing was out there somewhere, still hunting her…

"Do you think…you think it was a mutt, maybe?" Peeta's mind raced to find an explanation as he watched terror consume his wife's face.

"What's Annie doing out there?" She exclaimed, her sweat-slickened palm striking the glass pane in front of her in a gesture of panic as she spotted her friend wandering out to the forest.

"I thought she was in her room!" Peeta bounded down the nearby staircase, followed closely by Katniss, who had already grabbed her bow and arrows the moment she'd entered the house. They ran onto the street, turning the corner of their home to find nothing in place of where Annie had been. There was only the small, empty field and towering, forested hills beyond, mist flooding the air.

"Did she go into the forest? Oh, not with that thing out there!" Bow in hand, Katniss sprinted a few steps further, then hesitated, her eyes darting back and forth in an attempt to locate Annie without taking any more risks. The mist had grown thicker, however, and by now it was difficult to even distinguish the tree trunks from one another. It seemed strangely salty, reminding Katniss of the ocean coast, which she had only visited a few times in her life. In District 12, the strange weather seemed alien, and with such limited visibility, her bow would be useless; its advantage at distances nullified.

"We should look for her! She could get into danger!" Peeta came up from behind, placing a gentle hand on Katniss's shoulder. She didn't move; her eyes were wide.

"I…I'm scared."

"You? Scared?! First Gale and now…"

"I suppose I've lost some of that nerve I always had. I hate to admit it." Katniss shook her head. "The idea of that creature out there…it's just too much to bear."

"We've got to find Annie! We'll be okay if we just stick together. Just like we always have." Peeta took his partner's hand and together they eased themselves into the ever thickening mist. Though Katniss hesitated no longer, she became aware of a quiet, yet distinct, repetitive sound…a successive thumping, almost like a drum. It was the sound of her own heartbeat. She hoped Peeta didn't hear it and realize just how scared she was. And he did not hear her.

But a faraway figure, hidden amongst the mist and camouflaged by the dark, thin tree trunks, heard that heartbeat all too well.


	5. Chapter 5

**This chapter is sad and kind of scary ;_; but it's personally one of my favorite parts. I hope you like it.**

Annie didn't understand what had compelled her to venture into forests she knew just as little about as she did the old arenas of the Hunger Games. A thick fog now permeated the air, much like the morning fog that rose out of the seas of her homeland: District 4. Though nervous, the cool mist almost comforted her as it snaked across her soft skin, curling between branches and over roots. She couldn't comprehend why she wanted to go to such a potentially dangerous place, but the mist encouraged her to stay. She began to feel more and more at peace, taking in the salty fragrance of the immortal seas she knew so well. There was a faint hiss of wind and its whispers began to dissipate the fog, making the leaves of the trees shiver. She could almost make out words in the gentle gusts.

"Annie…"

She managed to distinguish the sound of her name from the rest of the wind. It came from behind her, and she whirled around, looking only to find tree trunks and tangled branches bending in the wind.

"I've missed you, Annie."

She felt a gloved hand against her back and turned around again. Just a moment ago, that voice had come from the opposite side!

"What…"

There was no shadowy monster before her, no twisted spirit. In place of it stood her one true love, Finnick Odair of District 4, wearing that same black suit she'd seen the night before. The mist danced around him magically, as merely a part of his breathtaking form. The surrounding branches magnified the silhouette of his long black limbs, and the darkening sky and brightening stars began to intermingle with the fog, as if everything in his presence was connected in one mind, one perfect soul.

"Aren't you going to say something?" He smiled. It was such a beautiful expression; one that Annie had almost never seen on him before. Tears blurred the lovely sight as, absentmindedly, he raised an arm to the sky, his fingers wrapping over a branch Annie had thought to be well out of his reach.

"How…how did you survive? Finnick…everyone told me that…you didn't make it."

"Oh, Annie…you must have been so sad. I would have felt awful had you been in my place. But there is no need for such sadness anymore." Finnick leaned in closer yet to his wife's face, still grinning. In a voice that almost laughed, he said, "they may think I didn't make it. That's a fine thing for ones so ignorant to believe. But, of course, they are wrong. I…saved myself...when I left this world behind." His luminous, sea green eyes were reflected in the almost sparkling mist that swirled around him, turning the entire forest into deep, rich shades of green and blue.

"Then how are you here? It's…impossible!" Even Annie's ravaged, shell-shocked mind began to face the truth. She was staring at something that simply couldn't be real.

"I've come to ask you to join me," he replied, reaching out a thin arm to hold her by the shoulder. "I've missed you so much. But don't you worry: I haven't suffered much in your absence. Hell is a glorious place for dead men like me."

"Hell?" Annie whispered, taking a trembling step away. "What are you talking about?"

"You'll see, soon enough." Though he didn't step forward, Finnick's hand remained at his wife's shoulder, as if his arm extended to match the distance between them. "Just trust me."

Annie wrenched her shoulder away, terror in her whitened face. She sidestepped to find her opposite hand already in Finnick's grasp.

"This time I really _will_ never let go of your hand." That once beautiful smile suddenly shifted to one with an aura of pure evil. His exquisite green eyes paled until they were nothing but white spheres, and all the color created by them vanished from the forest, replaced by a barren gray.

Annie cried out in fear, jerking away her hand. She wasn't nearly strong enough to get it free. Panicking, she used her free arm and swiped at her husband's once perfect face. His golden skin tore off like tissue paper, shredding away and dissolving in the salty mist.

Underneath it was nothing but bone-white blankness and the bleak, vacant stare of the slender man.

_"Aaanie!"_

His furious yell echoed from the depths of the forest and was drowned in the woman's scream as she lunged away as hard as she could, finally breaking its iron grip with sudden, adrenaline powered strength. But the branches all around took the form of black tendrils and began to close in on her far faster than she could run.


	6. Chapter 6

Katniss's hand had turned alabaster, each digit squeezing ever tighter against her lover's palm like a fleshy vise. The shade of her knuckles matched the whites of her panicked brown eyes, exposed out of terror and pure instinct. But no matter how far back she might manage to force her eyelids, the hazy view in front of her wouldn't be getting any clearer. Fog soaked the air, coiling like the fingers of a specter around anything in its surroundings.

The two were deep into the evening shadows of the forest, and had found no signs of their friend. Not a footprint, a scrap of cloth, or even, thankfully, a patch of blood.

A strange hiss pierced the air. Katniss almost suspected it came from the shapeless mist itself, but it was followed by a howling wail that rang distinctly from the east, opposite the faint, setting sun. The voice was unmistakably Annie's. Katniss's thoughts were pulled to the memory of that day in the Quarter Quell; of the Jabberjay she'd shot after it had piped out those awful wails. It was a miracle Finnick hadn't completely lost his sanity that day.

"Come on Katniss!"

She pulled herself away from the awful memories, directing her attention to Peeta, who was trying to pull her along towards the source of the shriek. Still somewhat dazed by that sickeningly familiar sound, she stumbled along after him, a sweating hand still holding fast to his.

"Do you think…that was Annie screaming?" she timidly suggested.

"…I do."

A second scream forced the two to a terrified halt, as if the blood had frozen in their adrenaline motorized bodies. Now Katniss was certain it was Annie she heard. Such a haunting pitch…and then it was cut short. The sound vanished from the air, as if both Katniss and Peeta gone deaf in an instant. But there was still that faint beating of Katniss's own heartbeat that assured her that her ears still functioned. She turned to Peeta to say something, something to break this chilling quiet and make them forget the horrible scream before it became a permanent mark in their minds. But something stopped her before she could even open her mouth. Over Peeta's shoulder she saw movement, not the faint waving of the black branches all around, nor the curling mist. This movement looked human, and at the thought, her breath was cut off in a moment of pure terror, sure that she would see Gale's glazed eyes as scarred face peering out from between the trees. And yet, she made out something entirely different.

"Peeta…do you see that? Do you see…what I see over there?"

The man turned to look upon a face he hadn't seen in over a year.

"Finnick!" Golden skinned, fire-haired Finnick stared him down from the sea of black branches with blue-green eyes that practically glittered in the night air. Both watched in awe, their jaws hanging in shock and their muscles completely slack and forgotten as their old friend glided out in front of the thick trees to face them.

"What?" Katniss couldn't think of any other word. She reached a cautious hand out to the strange, towering figure before her and it was enveloped in a pair of gloved hands.

"What are doing out here so late, my friends?" Finnick smiled, his straight, almost silvery teeth glinting in the thick mist. The mist swirled around the locks of his hair, which had an almost gravity-defying quality to them as they floated in the faint currents.

Katniss's expression of awe twisted into confusion as she mentally reminded herself of how impossible this moment was. "What are you? First that creature that looked like Gale and now…you?! What is this?" Katniss began to panic, questioning her sanity, and halfheartedly pulled her hand away. Finnick kept a firm grip on it, however. He hadn't moved the smallest bit.

"I came to take Annie back. Not to argue with my good friends." Still he smiled, though it almost seemed to bring him pain doing so.

"Annie?" The voice was Peeta's. He still held on to Katniss's opposite hand, which reassured her some. "You met Annie? We heard her screaming."

"That's who I was looking for the whole time, of course. She's quite safe now." There was a strange desperation in his gaze that Katniss immediately noticed. "Just go home. I won't bother you anymore."

"Where is she?" The fear in Peeta's voice was drowned by the determination in it. He stared down Finnick with a look that Katniss rarely saw on him. It almost reminded her of Gale. Angry Gale….

"Don't you trust me? She'll be safe with me now. I'm sure she'll grow to be happy there, too. We have our own, beautiful world. A world where…"

"What did you do with Annie?" Katniss interrupted, tearing her hand from Finnick's black gloves with a sharp yank. "Did you hurt her?"

"Of course not! I love her, Katniss!"

For a moment, all three were silent. Katniss almost began to nod. Then Peeta shook his head.

"You don't know what love _is_ anymore, Finnick Odair."

The last pitiful remains of Finnick's beautiful smile were smashed.

"How dare you!" He fumed in a voice as bitter as the agonized look in his eyes, "I was your friend! I…_died_ protecting you both! I cared greatly, not only for Annie, but for you all! Even after the Games, I was unbroken. Even after years of degradation under Snow's control, only to face the Quarter Quell, then struggle to go on as Annie lived a Capitol hostage, being tortured and tossed around in front of my nose like bait speared on a_ hook_! After _all_ that, I _still_ cared about her, I _still _knew love!"

"And then right when things were looking up, you died," Peeta concluded. "And you lost the last spark of compassion in your soul."

"Who are you to talk?" Finnick's voice was a mixture of shout and hiss. "You lost every good memory in your mind to the Capitol's torturers! You attacked those which you claimed to love!"

"He's better now, Finnick!" Katniss interrupted, gripping Peeta's hand. "Quite unlike you, I see. Now what happened to Annie?!"

"You dare defend that broken wretch?!" Finnick bared his teeth and gestured wildly with his arm, snapping a tree trunk in two upon impact with it against his hand. His voice turned condescending. "Such fiery words, girl on fire. Well…I have some fire of my own to share!"

In fury he whipped his other arm and from his fingertips spewed a billowing column of flame that engulfed the nearby trees, sparks spewing in its wake.

"Now _burn! Burn _and _enjoy_ it! Such pain was the greatest comfort this _miserable_ world had to offer!" With each wave of his hand, streaks of fire erupted out of the air, scorching the leafy ground and dry branches all around them. The danger overwhelmed her and Katniss forgot her retort to Finnick's words, grabbing Peeta by the shoulder and leading him away. The bursts of fire that were flung from Finnick's hands were all too familiar to her, and once again she thought of the moment in the 74th Hunger Games in which the Gamemakers had shot fireballs at her in an attempt to either drive her into other dangers or kill her. Katniss retreated deeper into the dark forest to avoid the crackling lights that began eating away the bark and leaves of every tree they touched. Just as the heat of the flames grew distant, another danger emerged from behind.

"_AAAH!"_


	7. Chapter 7

"It's back!" Katniss leapt to the side as Gale's twisted new form lunged from its hiding place among the shadows. But he hadn't tried to attack her. It was Peeta who felt the searing slash of its claws down his back, each mark like that of a razor sharp whip. He roared in agony, struggling to get away from the creature as he was dragged to the ground.

"Peeta!" Katniss readied her bow, drawing an arrow with speed only comparable to that when she had been a Tribute in the Hunger Games. Her fear that she might accidentally shoot Peeta hit home at the crucial moment when she let the arrow fly. Unsteady as a product of her panic, it swerved in the air like a misguided paper airplane, missing both Peeta and her intended target as they grappled furiously with one another. Even over their shouts and struggling, she could pick out a distinct noise from the rest. An unsteady, almost humming sound that came from behind her.

Finnick was laughing at them as he watched their struggle from afar.

"Sic him, Gale! Share with him our pain!" He called out from the distance through spurts of near maniacal laughter. A strange mixture of joy and fury swirled in the rims of his eyes.

"You!" Katniss sprinted through the trees, wrath consuming her body. Was he working with Gale? Were they even the old friends she thought they were?

Her bow was useless so long as the smoke mingled with the already misty air. Slinging it across her shoulder, Katniss let her anger take control and she rocketed back the way she had come, her feet pounding on the forest floor ever more rapidly every second. Just as she lunged to tackle the thing to the forest floor, a pair of moonlit hands shot out from the shadowy branches and snatched her off her feet. Katniss hit the root strewn ground with intense force, smashing her shoulder on impact. Gasping, she looked up to see yet another familiar face just inches from her own, one shrouded in deep, flowing brown hair and an aura of palpable rage.

"Don't you lay one _filthy_ hand on my husband!"

"Ann…"

Before Katniss could even finish her friend's name, a powerful slap practically turned her cheek to fire. Enraged from the shock, Katniss hit back, then hurled Annie off herself with an adrenaline powered throw. That last moment had been just too much like the one in her first Hunger Games: when the District 2 tribute Clove had pinned her down and had planned to torture her to death before the unlikely savior Thresh had stepped in and saved her.

"Are you out of your mind, Annie? What the hell are you…"

"Katniss!"

She turned to find Peeta lurching towards her, only a few feet away. "I managed to overpower it," he said, "but those claws…we've got to get out of here, now!"

Without delay, Katniss threw Peeta's bloody, torn up arm over her shoulder and led him through the forest as fast as she could sprint.

"That's right! Run! Leave the dead behind…" rang Finnick's lovely, broken voice.

Katniss grew tense, but didn't look back, bracing for Gale's haunting scream.

"_AAAH!"_

It was Annie's voice that called out from the black forest instead.


	8. Chapter 8

**Another long one...meh. But don't worry; Cato and Clove both make an epic appearance in this chapter!**

"Peeta!" Katniss choked out as she burst open the door to their home, "Peeta, are you alright? I think we're safe now."

Katniss quickly lowered Peeta's limp body to the carpeted floor, then slammed and bolted the door behind her. So her paranoid insistence on having bolts attached to all the doors had paid off after all….

"Uhh…"

Katniss turned back to her husband, flicking on a light switch to reveal a scene of pure horror. The cuts that covered his body were all too similar to the marks of Cato's sword. But he was in far worse condition than he had ever been in the Hunger Games. It was if Cato's old wound had spread over his entire body…just like how Romulus's had spread over Gale.

_Why…? _She thought, her mind growing dizzy as blood seeped from the series of triplet gashes splaying across his skin. _Why us, again?_

"I'll go get the first aid! Don't worry, Peeta!"

_Why must we face these horrors and fears yet _again?

Katniss's booted feet pounded up the stairs and clattered into the bathroom.

_What more does this world want from us? How can they further scar our bodies and minds?_

Her fingers hooked the handle of a white plastic case and yanked it from its shelf. She stepped out into the upstairs hallway, across from the open door to her bedroom. In the black depths of the unlit chamber, something caught her eye.

Annie's lovely face looked back at her from the darkness.

Katniss stared, frozen half in awe, half in terror. She waited for the face to move, for Annie's body to separate from the darkness and charge at her. Would movement provoke an attack? Would speech do the same? Katniss refrained from both.

Or would Katniss's blank stare and fear-white face inspire Annie's wrath?

Still, Annie remained motionless, but she did not remain silent. Instead, in an all too familiar voice, she called,

"Where's lover boy? Oh, I see. You're gonna help him, right? Well, that's sweet. You know, it's too bad you couldn't help your little…friend. That little girl…what was her name again? Rue? Well, we killed her. And now we're gonna kill you."

"What? Clove…?"

The girl lifted a hand and Katniss's whole body nearly shook with panic. But she had only moved it to display her hair from its place behind her back. It was much longer and even darker than Annie's, and hung in a long ponytail, which she pulled out over her shoulder as if caressing the black skin of a deadly serpent. Katniss had been mistaken. This foe she faced was far more dangerous than Annie.

"Clove!"

_"Katniss!"_

Clove charged towards her like a wild animal, practically on all fours. Katniss dropped the first aid kit and braced herself for the replaying of yet another horrific moment in her life.

The two girls collided with the force of a pair of missiles. Spinning with excess momentum, they crashed to the floor and grappled with one another with intensity, snatching at clothes and skin and hair in desperate attempts to gain an advantage over the other. Katniss clutched at Clove's jacket, the same black, heat reflecting uniform they were given for the 74th Games.

_Was Clove just another part of this strange…uprising?_

Katniss felt the sole of Clove's boot slide over her exposed wrist, but she pulled away before the Tribute could clamp down and restrain her. Katniss was stronger than she'd been during her last encounter with Clove. But somehow, Clove seemed stronger in her own way. Her flimsy temper and almost forced cruelty towards those around her had vanished, replaced by fiery emotions and a miserable, somehow vacant look in her eyes. Like the others, Clove wasn't exactly herself anymore.

Katniss swiped away a backhanded punch that nearly hit its mark and thrust her knee into Clove's stomach, pushing her back.

"You won't get me this time!" Katniss gasped, at last succeeding in shoving Clove a good foot or so away. Before the girl could even lunge to a crouch, Katniss was upon her. Pinning her down, Katniss straddled her stomach, securing her flailing arms to the ground quite similarly to how Clove had once restrained her. The former Career was still hesitant to give up; kicking and writhing until it was quite certain she had no chance against the two-time Games survivor.

"Calm down, Clove! You don't have a weapon, and I'm not about to use my bow at this distance. Things can be worked out peacefully." Katniss raised a hand in a gesture of pacifism and Clove snapped at it, a great clacking sound piercing the air as her jaws slammed shut. This kind of reasoning was futile, Katniss realized. Clove wouldn't have submitted to it then, and she wouldn't now. Force was the only language she understood and respected.

Taking note of this, Katniss gripped her foe around the throat, jerking her head back until her neck was perilously close to snapping.

"Listen to me, Clove! I don't know why and how you're here, but you attacked me and, by defeating you, I have the right to some answers! You're lucky I haven't…killed you yet after that little stunt!"

The vacantness returned to Clove's still silent face. The anger and fear faded from her once strained features and was replaced by a deep misery that shrouded her eyes in a veil of tears.

"Cato…" she whispered, the word barely audible due to Katniss's grip over her vocal cords. "Cato...he didn't…."

Katniss eased her grip on the girl's neck, mostly out of curiosity, though not completely uninfluenced by a strange pity she began to feel as the girl Tribute repeated her district partner's name, tears trailing down her face like ink on a canvas.

"Cato didn't come!" She began to sob.

"Clove what do you-"

"Cato didn't save me!"

And now she wailed, remembering those last moments of her short, painful life, screaming her partner's name in hopes that he would rescue her from a death almost as horrible as that which she had planned to inflict.

Now the Career began to thrash again, fighting furiously through her haunting cries of Cato's name.

"Clove, stop!" Katniss was forced to clamp down on her shoulder and neck yet again just as Clove was beginning to wrench free.

"Cato!_ Cato!"_

"If you attack me again, I promise you, I'm not going to…"

Clove struggled in wild bursts, each desperate attempt stronger than the last, each muscle fueled with more adrenaline. There was a sudden crackling noise as muscle and bone were torn and snapped, just when Clove strained as hard as she could against Katniss's grip on her neck. In a flash, she stiffened, only a faint, hissing wheeze in place of her previous shrieking.

In a mad effort to struggle away, the girl had snapped her own neck against Katniss's hand.

Katniss stared into the girl's rigid face, with her motionless eyes-still wet with warm tears-and half open jaw, frozen in the midst of calling Cato's name. She was almost tempted to wail and cry herself, but something unseen until now caught her attention.

Out from under Clove's lifeless figure, a string-like black line slithered across the floor, a small pool of blood seeping from her body in its wake.

_Had it been attached to her?_

The thin tendril receded further down the hallway. Katniss realized it was quite long; what she saw was just one end of the whole. In confusion she watched it snake off into the distance, slowing to a stop at a pair of feet that now stood in front of the opposite wall.

Katniss thought first that it must be Peeta. He must have recovered!"Peet…"

Katniss looked up and her own voice was cut off in shock. The face that she looked into was not Peeta's, nor Finnick's, nor even Gale's.

"Clove…" Cato called in his intimidating voice, tinged with misery, staring at the two figures with a face whose haunting expression rivaled that of Clove's corpse. That same vacancy permeated his features and gave his eyes a glazed, zombified look.

"I didn't save her. I was too late!" He clutched his head in his hands, shaking it wildly. Rage made his face flush red, and suddenly he lunged forward, determined to at least avenge his partner's death by bringing the same to the young woman who killed her.

Katniss had already nocked her arrow and drew it, the point perfectly aligned with Cato's forehead. The moment she saw Cato's face, she knew she was going to need her weapons.

"Don't move Cato," she threatened. Then her voice softened. "Please…don't move. I just want to know…"

"Damn you, Twelve!"


	9. Chapter 9

**Lots of other characters are introduced in this chapter (as undead puppets like Cato and Clove...mwahaha.)**

**Once again, please review!**

Just as Cato drew his sword, an arrow sliced through his skull and he crumpled to the ground, blood trickling from the opening onto the carpet floor.

"Are you okay, Peeta?" Katniss forced herself to leave the scene, picking the first aid kit off the ground, stepping over the corpses in the hallway like stray laundry and bounding down the stairs as fast as her muscles could go.

"K-Kat…niss…" came a moaning reply from below.

Katniss reached the end of the stairs and ran to the entryway, finding that Peeta was already sitting up, though the open wounds seemed to have grown even larger than before. Such deep marks could easily be fatal.

"I've got some of that old Capitol ointment in here, Peeta," Katniss assured, gesturing for him to lie down. "Don't move any more right now! You're bleeding too much."

"Katniss, I…I'm not feeling right…." The look in Peeta's eyes was wild. Almost as wild as Gale's.

"Of course you're not! Just lie down and I'll try to fix you up!" Katniss was already unscrewing the lid of a pot of the same lotion she'd used to heal her burns in the 74th Hunger Games.

"It's not that, Katniss. It's…my mind…it feels like it's being possessed. I don't know what I might do right now, Katniss…"

"Just try to lie still!" Katniss dipped her fingers into the substance and plastered it over one of the largest gashes in Peeta's leg. Yet its healing effects seemed to be gone. Peeta's pained expression was only intensified.

"Katniss, run!"

In a flash, he lunged to his feet and slashed at her with a set of rapidly growing claws.

Two of the claws managed to graze the side of Katniss's face, but she had already jerked back and scrambled to her feet. The blood trickling down her face was flung into the air as she whirled around and did just what Peeta had told her to: run. She reached the back door of her home in record time, taking her bow into her hand and unlatching the door with the other. As she opened it, thick, smoky mist billowed into the hallway. Undaunted, she marched into the darkness and shut the door behind her as fast as she could, soon to hear Peeta charge into it from the other side with a sickening boom. Risking just more glance behind her, she witnessed Peeta's disfigured hand slam into the small glass panel in the center of the door, accompanied by a thud, then a low screech as the bloody, curved claws raked down the smooth surface, deep scratches appearing in their wake.

Then Katniss forced herself to turn away and run off back into the still smoldering forest. She knew what she had to do if she wanted any hope of saving her husband.

_I have to kill that thing controlling him out there!_

Black, silhouetted trees whipped by her, only visible through the mist the moment she reached them. But her fears had vanished, replaced by the steadfast Girl on Fire's unbreakable will.

"Gale! I'm here to finish this!" She called into the forest, determined to fight the creature yet again…and win. A distant scream echoed in reply, but it was accompanied by another, in a far lower tone, and then another, quite high and almost childlike.

There were far more horrors to be uncovered in these woods than Katniss had ever imagined.

The first figure staggered, zombie-like, past a birch tree to her right. Katniss turned sharply and backed away, but hesitated to draw her bow, finally deciding to make a warning shot. Her arrow shot into the bark of the birch.

"Stop or I'm going to shoot!"

Rebelliously the figure lunged out from the cloaking mist, revealing a face Katniss knew all too well. It was none other than Wiress of District Three, with her dark hair and ashen skin, dressed in that same uniform she'd died wearing in the Quarter Quell. Her arms were extended as if she was about to fall. But those hands were aimed for Katniss's neck.

An arrow pierced the woman's throat and silenced a growing moan that would have surely matured into another haunting, unforgettable scream. Blood spurted onto Katniss's clothes as her old friend collapsed, the mist parting before her as if she fell through water. The thud of her head impacting the dirt muffled another footstep coming from behind, but Katniss managed to make out the new, approaching figure through the mist. Turning to it, she drew another arrow from the five that remained in her quiver, watching as the slightly shorter individual more gracefully stepped between the many trunks and branches in its path.

"Who are you?"

There was no reply. Instead, it too lunged from the shadows in a flurry of blonde hair, powerful eyes aimed straight at her target.

Madge.

Katniss refused to let herself hesitate and shot her dear old friend straight through one of those piercing eyes. She had failed to silence the girl's scream, however, and it rang out like a siren through the night air.

_Was this how she sounded on the day of that bombing?_

Katniss looked down at Madge's beautiful, contorted body slumped on the ground. Yet another strange black string slithered out from underneath her. But it seemed to be more like yarn this time, as it was much thicker, and ended in a slimy point that appeared to be soaked in blood. Turning back to Wiress, Katniss caught a glimpse of a third cord snaking off into the mist.

Another scream rang out from her left and she was forced to look away from the strange sight, drawing her bow a fourth time and letting it fly at the head of the next person the moment she saw them. At this point, she didn't even want to know who it was.

"Gale!" She called, furious at this whole horrible situation, "Where are you, Gale? _Where are you?!"_

Tremors of fury racked her body as she heard a miniature chorus of three more awful screams, none of them Gale's, and turned to find not three, but _five_ more dead friends staggering out of the shadows.

She didn't have enough arrows to stop them all. Seething with frustration, she turned and ran from the descending horde and into the deepest regions of the forest. Katniss felt a hand snatch at the back of her coat and turned, simultaneously drawing her bow and shooting the moment she saw the person's head.

Her arrowhead plunged into the forehead of Boggs from District 13. Just before turning back, Katniss noticed an ever thicker black tendril scurry from his corpse.

Swiping tears from her eyes (it was difficult enough to see without them) Katniss continued to sprint, lunging past tree and tribute alike as more and more figures began to converge on her from all sides. For a split second, she attempted to speed over a clump of roots faster than she should have. Her boots caught on the upraised ground and she slammed into the dirt in an instant. She whirled onto her back, ignoring the pain and preparing to jump to her feet, when she saw a hulking figure looming before her.

Thresh raised a rock the size of a loaf of bread, preparing to smash it into her skull.


	10. Chapter 10

"That's enough, my friends!" A calm voice cooed from behind, causing the Tribute to stiffen, dropping his rock with a muffled boom against the dirt beside Katniss's leg. Deeming it safer to let Thresh leave her sight, Katniss turned her head to find Finnick gliding her way. Panicking, she scrambled up, backing away from both he and Thresh, bow in hand.

"What do you want?" She growled.

"What do_ you _want, Katniss?" That terrifying smile had returned to Finnick's perfect features.

"I want Peeta back! Whatever that creature did to him, it…"

"He belongs with us, now," the Victor calmly explained. "There is _nothing_ you can do to keep him chained to this miserable world anymore."

"What if I killed your little pet?" Katniss threatened, nocking an arrow to prove her seriousness.

"You mean to kill the very embodiment of rage? The one you mortal wretches simply labeled, The Rake?" Something behind Finnick moved through the darkness. It appeared to be some kind of thick, black tentacle. Katniss immediately thought of the small cords she had found attached to the corpses' bodies.

"You…" Katniss was still putting the pieces together in her head. "You're controlling them all, aren't you?"

Finnick laughed tonelessly, his shining eyes staring aimlessly skyward. "You're so slow to catch on," he remarked. Then his confident voice turned to something of a hiss. "No wonder all those Capitol goons adored it so when you played their Games. And your situation is just so ironic. One moment you promised to feign love for your district partner, Peeta, in exchange for Gale's life…and the now, you're here to kill him, after he attacked your…husband."

"How would you know about that, Finnick?! That was between me and…and…Snow."

And then that nagging voice in Katniss's head finally rang true. _This thing is not Finnick. This is something…some_one_, else._

Katniss drew her bow and let the arrow sail past her fingers, aimed directly for her foe's heart. It missed her mark just slightly, instead impaling the lapel of Finnick's suit.

"Uh…" He took a staggering step back, gripping the length of the arrow in his thin hand. Katniss expected him to pull it out and maybe even resume his taunting of her. Yet he hesitated, a strange look in his eyes as they stared into hers. Katniss was drawn away from his stare as she noticed something fading into visibility. Pinned between her arrow and the folds of Finnick's suit was a fully blooming, genetically enhanced white rose; the favorite of old President Snow. It had been hidden from mortal vision until the fateful moment she'd shot it.

"Katniss…I'm so sorry…" Finnick's voice held a depth and truth to it that it hadn't all this time before.

"Finnick?" Katniss stepped forward. Despite the rose's appearance, she felt, for the first time, that she wasn't being deceived. Now she saw the real Finnick; the one she still vaguely remembered. His previous confidence had been that same act he had used to intimidate his fellow tributes. His empty smile had been the same emotionless mask he had displayed to his Capitol clients.

"Oh, god, Katniss…!" Finnick's trembling voice was cut off, as if a great force had vacuumed the breath from his body. Katniss glanced to her side to find Thresh staring at her with an equally lost expression. He too whispered out her name, as if seeing her for the first time. Others stepped shakily towards her from the darkness of the forest; Seeder, Darius, Cecelia and Woof, Glimmer and Marvel, even her dear friend Cinna, himself.

"Katniss," they all whispered to her, genuine sorrow in each and every pair of eyes she looked to.

"No! _No!"_ Finnick's cries suddenly broke the surreal moment and he clutched his face in his hands, struggling as if to evade some unseen attacker. "I can't hold it back anymore! _I can't keep him in!_"

"No!" Katniss ran forward, determined to help her friend.

A horrific cacophony of ripping and popping made Katniss halt in frozen terror. Black blood spewed in all directions as Finnick's hands ripped his own head from his body.

But were those hands really Finnick's?

A flurry of black tentacles exploded from his body and Katniss was thrown back through the dark forest. Blood and fire and old friends whipped by her in a dark whirlwind of destruction, and then her vision was cut off.

Suddenly she was looking up at a silver parachute floating down to the arena.

_This is…just like the moment Finnick died._ Katniss's memory was drawn to that strange vision she had experience the instant her friend had been decapitated by lizard muttations. But there was something quite different about the vision this time around.

Katniss looked down from the parachute in the sky to find a hulking, furious tribute charging towards her, through a forest of snowy pines, spear in hand, howling with wordless rage.

Then an entirely different picture greeted her. Katniss stared out not at a view of the vast District Four seas, but of the nighttime Capitol skyline from behind a thick pane of glass. Then a long nailed hand grabbed her around the wrist and yanked her had from the smooth surface; a former sponsor's voice explaining _just_ how much she was owed after saving the tribute's life.

Now a vision of another hostile arena greeted her, this one flooded with poisonous mist. An old woman ran past her faster than she could stop her and plunged into the thick gasses, crumpling into a twitching heap in an instant.

And then there was Annie, beaming with joy, practically floating like an angel in her elegant wedding gown. Leaning forward, their lips were about to touch, when suddenly their surroundings turned dark. They are trapped in a damp, shadowy sewer. And at that moment, Annie's pale, lovely face morphs into a scaly monstrosity with slitted pupils and razor teeth that sink through flesh and bone in one horrific instant. The kiss of death.

_I killed for you! _A lonely, miserable voice rang out in Katniss's head, _I won your Games! I did ten _years _of your dirtiest work! I endured it all! And yet…you outlived me, Snow. You remained in a world that, no matter how wretched, still bore my dear Annie. And now even in _DEATH _you will give me no peace!_

The once clear words devolved into an incomprehensible roar that filled Katniss's senses and shook her to the bone.

At last all noise ceased and she opened her eyes. What remained of Finnick's existence was seemingly destroyed, along with all of the puppets that had been attached to him.

And there in his place stood a smiling Coriolanus Snow.

**I'm sure you all knew he was coming :)**

**Prim and Rue have a part in the next chapter, so keep reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

Katniss attempted to stand, but the shock was too much for her. She could only manage to steady herself on her hands and knees.

"Yes…kneel. You will always be beneath me," a cruel, sickeningly familiar voice called to her.

"S-sn…" Katniss reached for her bow. It was far out of her reach, lying at the roots of an oak tree after being blown out of her hands in the explosion. Not even her arrows had remained in their quiver.

"Where's Finnick?" She choked out, her throat tight as she fought off a sob.

"What a ridiculous question. He's dead, of course," Snow shook his head, staring at Katniss disappointedly, like a father would to his delusional child.

"But he…" Katniss gripped the edge of a tree in an attempt to stand, "but why are _you_ here?!"

Now Snow smiled. The sight of such a twisted expression made Katniss visibly pale and even turn a slight shade of green. "To give you a gift," he replied.

"…Whatever it is I don't want it!" Katniss was at such a level of terror that she had to swallow several times to keep herself from foaming at the mouth.

"It is a chance at redemption. Your…friends…have failed, but I expect differently of you."

Katniss took a look at the dark woods surrounding her and debated running away now that she had managed to get to her feet. She decided against it; she had to stop Gale if she wanted any hope of Peeta returning to normal, and besides, she wanted answers.

"What is it that…?" Katniss's vocal cords stiffened the moment she turned back to Snow. There, on his right, stood Rue of District Eleven, still wearing her arena uniform. And on his left was Katniss's very own little sister, Prim.

"Save us," they whispered to her. Rue's eyes shone like spheres of ebony; Prim's glistened like sapphires. And yet there still remained that eerie vacancy in their faces. Katniss stepped forward on wobbling knees, gasping uncontrollably with shock. Every word she tried to form was stopped by another great breath of disbelief. Snow stepped back, still smiling, fading into the darkness between the trees.

"Save us," they repeated, their voices unimaginably pure and sweet…just as Katniss remembered them.

Then Gale's twisted, screeching form rocketed out of the shadows on all fours and leapt for the two girls, claws raised.

_I've got to save them! _

Katniss charged forward on only half-steady legs and intercepted the hideous creature just as it was going to pounce upon the girls.

"Save us!"

Katniss wrestled with her foe, both of them preventing the other from rising to their feet. Multiple times Katniss felt a claw or two slicing through her clothes and skin in an attempt to push her away. It twisted, gnashed its jaws and howled in a flurry of chaos, desperate to free itself from Katniss's grasp…and kill those two little girls that stood like helpless statues before them.

Katniss felt one of the claws on its right paw dig particularly deep into her arm. She instinctively released her hold on its shoulder in order to pull the claw away and grasp the rapidly bleeding wound.

"Ah…!"

The creature spied its chance and stretched open its jaws so wide that the skin of its cheeks was ripped apart, revealing an appalling, jagged set of teeth, ready to lock onto Katniss's throat in an instant. Unarmed, Katniss could think of only one way to possibly save herself.

Raising her hand from its place over her wound, she plunged two fingers straight onto, into and through the thing's hideous left eye with a horrific squish.

Sending one last kick at the enraged but incapacitated monster, Katniss scrambled away, lunging for her bow.

"Save us!" Prim and Rue called simultaneously. The look on Rue's tiny face was rigid, as if she wanted to say more but couldn't. Katniss ripped her bow and an arrow beside it from the ground, taking aim as quickly as she could.

Slowly the creature raised itself to a crouch, the fleshy palm of an otherwise lethal hand clutching its eye as it growled in almost pitiable agony. Katniss hadn't managed to reach its brain.

Yet somehow, she was relieved she hadn't.

"Gale." She hated that at a time like this, she could only think of the old friend whose face adorned this monster's body.

The creature inclined its head, as if responding to the name. At the nightmarish sight, Katniss hardened her resolved, nocking the arrow and drawing her bow.

"You…monster…." Her voice was far more bitter than it was angry. Taking aim, her target recoiled, as if afraid, shielding itself with a clawed hand. Seeing the creature cower almost made Katniss drop her bow.

"Gale, if that's you…"

Looking back at her through its one uninjured eye, it dropped its defending arm. Its penetrating stare made Katniss lower her bow in response.

"Is it_ you_, Gale?" Katniss sobbed. Why couldn't she make a single decision anymore?

The creature nodded visibly in response.

"Save us!" The girls looked at Katniss with panicked horror in their eyes.

Katniss looked away from them, her eyes returning to the thing's immovable one-eyed stare. Its eyes were gray, just like Gale's…

"It's…not…him!" Prim finally choked out. The creature gave a short wail, so miserable in its tone. But for Katniss, Prim's word outweighed it all.

"Gale…." Wiping the tears from her eyes, Katniss drew her bow again. The creature inched away, terrified of her as she took aim with a determined gaze.

_Gale or not, I have to save Peeta from ending up like it!_

"Gale, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Katniss cried, letting her arrow shoot from her hands like a bird taking flight. It pierced her dear friend straight through the heart, exactly as she had aimed. He lurched back, collapsing in an instant, one final, moaning sentence escaping its throat.

"Katniss…thank you."

Then he and Rue and Prim dissolved into the mist in a flash.

"Good work, Miss Everdeen. I could really feel the…fire…of your will."

In place of the two girls appeared the old President Snow, still smiling warmly, like a proud father after seeing his (once delusional) child's newest success.

**Poor Gale :( Was it really him all along?**

**If you've gotten this far, tell me your favorite part! :)**


	12. Chapter 12

"Where did they go? Where did they go, you fiend?!" Katniss looked left and right for another arrow that she might be able to use against him, seeing one or possibly two off in the distance, half hidden behind a tangle of roots.

"They're with us," he cryptically replied, "and now you will join them."

"What do you mean?" The woman replied with terror in her wide doe's eyes, backing away.

"It's your choice now, Katniss: misery or rage? The man in the suit or the mindless beast? You have the privilege to become a part of either." Snow chuckled, thoroughly enjoying the torment of his nemesis.

"But…I redeemed myself! I passed you little test!" Katniss bared her teeth like a dog resisting a beating.

"Oh, but you still don't understand, dear Miss Everdeen," Snow teased. "A glimmer of hope just makes a crushing death all the more sweet to the one who deals it."

"And that's what you did to _Finnick, _isn't it?" The voice was that of Annie Odair, who stepped out from behind a tree trunk and glided toward her friend and foe with a determination that only added to her grace.

"Silence," came Snow's one-word reply.

"You don't have as much power over me as you might think. I'm not like one of those puppets just yet. I was only…confused, at first."

"He didn't kill you?" Snow's expression turned downright villainous.

"I'm just as alive as she is," Annie proclaimed, lifting a hand in Katniss's direction.

"That bastard spared your life!" The black branches surrounding them shuddered with a sudden gust of wind.

"Of course he did. Just when I was immobilized by the branches, he found the will to let me go. He said he was sorry and ran away. I tried to follow him, and it was then that I saw Katniss about to attack him. But I suppose that none of it matters to a dead, heartless man like you. You'll be far more interested by the fact that I am here to offer my life."

"Annie?" Katniss looked at her with an open mouth.

"And why, exactly, would you choose to sacrifice yourself?" Snow asked, the smile beginning to return to his face.

"Because I'd rather let you have a poor, mad girl than the Girl on Fire. I'd rather let you have the one who's pitiful screams are imprisoned in a Jabberjay's throat than the Mockingjay herself." Annie stared her enemy down with defiant eyes that burned with a hatred overpowered only by her iron resolve.

"Well said, District Four," Snow patronizingly remarked. "It's understandable that you would have such little will to live."

The three of them stared at one another in silence. Each felt that the others may somehow be deceiving them.

"Annie…" Katniss said, barely above a whisper, "you should get out of here…."

The woman only shook her head in reply. Her eyes remained fixed on Snow.

"I'll take your offer," Snow at last concluded. "Your friend's soul may be broken, but yours is in absolute tatters; simply irresistible. It would make a fine addition to this form."

"No! Annie, run!" Katniss ran to her friend, giving her a push for a head start. Annie barely flinched, remaining in place.

"I'm not backing down any more, Katniss," she growled. Then her voice grew softer and she said, "Just remember me. Remember us all, and know that we all love you, Katniss."

Katniss stepped back, almost as much in confusion as she was in despair. The branches all around them began to close in on Annie's dainty frame, beginning to form a tangled wall between the two of them.

"Annie!" Katniss couldn't find any words that had a hope of convincing her friend and fellow Victor to run.

"Come on, Snow," Annie called, ignoring Katniss's pleas. "I'm ready for the nightmares to become reality. I…always knew…that they would one day."

Through the ever thickening tentacles closing in around her, Katniss made out a smile on Annie's lovely face. Her sea green eyes twinkled like stars.

Then she was engulfed and both she and Snow and the mass of hideous tentacles dissolved in a flash.

"Oh, Annie!" Katniss crumpled to a kneel on the forest floor, holding her twisted, miserable face in her hands.

Through the darkness, a voice called to her.

_You've had good fortune… _The voice was Clove's, a harsh whisper.

_The fortune to see your own future. _Cato murmured along.

Someone began to laugh. It was in Finnick's voice.

_A future that will play out much like my dear Annie's._

"Stop!" Katniss held her hands over her ears in terror. "Stop!"

_One day, maybe when you are veeery old…_Rue called in an almost innocent tone.

_Far older than we had ever been…_Prim giggled, as if in pure joy.

_You are going to join us! _Katniss could almost see Madge smiling at her as she gave her friend the news.

"Stop!"

_You'll become a piece… _Cinna calmly droned along.

_Of our great misery…_The voice was none other than that of Alma Coin herself.

_And a part of the creature known as Slender Man._

President Snow's deep, cruel laugh was the final straw for Katniss. Screaming, she struggled her way out of the forest, half blinded with tears and the darkness of night. The trunks and branches surrounding her blurred into an unidentifiable mess and she quickly became completely lost, at last collapsing onto the roots of an ash tree and blacking out in a fit of despair.

"Katniss? Katniss?"

Someone was calling her.

"No! What do you want?" Katniss was certain it would be another ghost trying to torment her. Panicking, she struggled to her feet and opened her eyes to the dim morning light.

A figure stood before her. Recoiling, she looked up to find not a dead Tribute or an old friend, but her husband Peeta, looking just as human as she remembered him to be.

"P-peet…" her voice faltered as she began to cry.

"What happened, Katniss?" Peeta knelt down and hugged her, explaining that he had woken up back at the house to find that his wounds had healed and that she was missing. "I've been out here looking for you for an hour, at least," he said, stroking her hair as she cried onto the bloody front of his tattered shirt.

"I…couldn't save Annie. They took her. Peeta, i-it wasn't Finnick, it was…all of them. Snow controlled them all. I know I sound crazy, but…" Katniss broke into another fit of sobbing; only managing to cling to Peeta's shirt and breathe as slowly as she could make herself.

"It's okay, Katniss," Peeta consoled, "I…saw some crazy things myself."

Katniss savored the moment, unable to bring herself to tell Peeta about the exact nature of Annie's death. She couldn't make herself share such miserable things with the kindest, most optimistic person she knew.

_But I'll always know what waits for me at the end of this life._

**The end!**

**I hope you guys enjoyed it! I spent a lot of time getting it just right (a lot of time that should have been spent on my homework...oh, well.)**

**Thank you guys sooo much for reading! ;)**


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